


First taste

by tahanrien



Category: Tomb Raider (Video Games)
Genre: F/F, Falling In Love, POV Multiple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:48:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28142637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tahanrien/pseuds/tahanrien
Summary: Sam wakes up in love. But it takes her a few times.
Relationships: Lara Croft/Samantha Nishimura
Comments: 5
Kudos: 47
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	First taste

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SophieAyase](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SophieAyase/gifts).



> Alternate summary: Five times Sam and Lara fall in love, and one time they finally notice.
> 
> I took some quotes from the game, as in, much of the dialogue comes from the game. :)

1.  
She ducked low behind the statue; as broken down as it was, too damaged to even be recognizable, it was still tall and wide enough for Sam to cower behind. If any of the men walked along the wall, they would surely see her, but right now, the statue gave her enough cover. This old Japanese palace had so many rooms, filled with the men who had kidnapped her, but also full of hiding places she could use. She dared to breathe out and it felt like it was the first breath she had taken in the ten minutes since she had seen the man put down his radio. 

Sam counted in her head.

Nine minutes since the man had been called away - Sam did not speak Russian that well, and not enough to understand it in a situation like this, but she knew an angry call when she ever heard one.

Eight minutes since Sam had decided to get the radio.

Two minutes since she had managed to take the radio.

Her hands were shaking, but she knew that she did not have much time. She needed to find out what was going on. She had been kidnapped - she knew that much. The men were guarding her and whatever this ‘fire ritual’ was, she did not want to find out.

Carefully, Sam took one last glance at the entrance and turned to the radio. Her fingers were shaking and it was hard to press the correct buttons, but she managed. “Hello? Hello?”, she repeated. The radio crackled. Nothing. Sam swallowed and tried again. “Hello?”

There was a second of static, then: “Sam, it’s Lara!”

Sam started at the back of what remained of the statue. For a second, she thought she had only imagined Lara’s voice. For a second she thought that if she just wanted it enough, she could imagine even the crackling radio as another human voice. As Lara’s voice. But the sounds coming through the radio were real.

Sam dared to breathe again. For one moment, just for one moment, not even a minute, just a few seconds, she allowed herself to close her eyes and breathe. Her heart was beating fast like a rabbit’s, even faster now that she had managed to get through to someone.

To Lara.

“Oh god, Lara…” she whispered into the radio, “It’s good to hear your voice.”

2.

The guard - Dmitri - dropped as soon as the arrow pierced his chest. Lara wasn’t surprised - the first kill had felt strange, almost alien. Even if she had trained with weapons and fighting, killing a human, even such a scum, was something else.

But by now, it was almost second nature to her, to draw the bow, aim, shoot.

Dmitri dropped, Sam looked up and their eyes met.

“Lara!” Sam called out. She looked beaten up, at least as roughed up as Lara was, but still, something in Lara’s chest skipped when she heard Sam’s voice. The relief in her tone, the look on her face. The relief. For which Lara was the reason. “Oh my god, you’re here! I was beginning to think I was going crazy!”

Lara did not even need to think about stepping forward, running these three steps, to pull Sam into a tight hug. For a second, a tiny part of Lara worried that Sam would not hug her back - a tiny, nervous flutter in her chest, that had no reason to even exist.

And Sam did hug her bag. She smelled like seawater and grime, probably the same way Lara smelled, minus all the blood, and her body felt compact with how Sam pressed herself into Lara, into the hug, into her body. Lara knew that she needed to pull back in a moment, but right now, she could only close her eyes and keep Sam close.

Her chest hurt, and her voice almost broke on the next words, but she needed to say them.

“It’s okay, it’s okay…” Lara said, whispers into the side of Sam’s neck. Her lips brushed the skin there, and she did not think about the smell and the dirt and the sweat, only about the fact that if she pressed just a bit firmer, she would be able to kiss Sam’s neck.

Sam shivered, and the moment passed.

“It’s going to be okay”, Lara said and pulled back.

3\. 

Roth was gone.

Sam did not even dare to look at Lara, but she had to. She owed her that much. No matter how much it hurt to see her like this: Tired, worried, desperate. Scared. Sam had held her as close as she dared, while still trying to give Lara the space she needed, but it did not feel enough.

Reyes was right; Lara needed sleep. But they all needed sleep, and it was not for the reason Reyes thought it was. There was so much wrong with the island and Reyes not seeing that could be dangerous, but at least Jonah was on their side.

Their side. Sam liked the sound of that.

The close to the burning pyre the heat made Sam sweat and the brightness of the flames hurt her eyes and made them water, but she would not dare to pull Lara further away, even if she wanted to.

Reyes, Jonah, and Alex had left now, and it was just them. Sam did not want to let Lara go again, but from the look that Lara had in her eyes, she wanted to be alone.

And Sam understood that. She did. Of course, she did.

And yet. 

She had to force herself to pull away, even if she wanted to hug Lara close again. Even if she had to hold herself back from telling Lara so much more, with her thoughts spiraling around in her head.

But none of that mattered now. Roth had died, and with him, Lara had lost another father, and Sam was not going to dump all these messy thoughts in her head on Lara. Not now.

Instead, she brushed her hands along Lara’s arms, in a strange imitation of warming her up, even if her hands just wanted to touch her. “You know where we will be,” Sam said, gently, “Come down when you’re ready.”

And she added because she needed Lara to know: “We won’t go anywhere without you.”

When Lara pulled her close again for a hug, Sam closed her eyes and thought, with her heart beating hard in her chest, ‘Oh.’

4\. 

Running up to the boat, Lara barely saw Jonah and Reyes working on the engine. No, there was Sam, watching them work, and Lara had to pause. Just for a moment, just out of sight enough that they did not notice her immediately. Maybe that was creepy, maybe it was strange, but all of sudden, her mind was racing.

Ever since the pyre, it had been hard to think about anything else. There was the island, and the unraveling mystery surrounding Himiko, and the dangers, yes. But there was also Sam’s body against hers, locked in a tight embrace, that Lara could not stop thinking about.

Something inside of her that made her burn.

Sam looked up and-- “Sam!” Lara could not stop herself from calling out, “I’m here.”

She stepped closer. If Reyes and Jonah looked up from their work, Lara did not notice.

“Lara!” Sam said, and smiled, and she stepped closer. And.

And Lara pulled her close, to feel Sam close again, and she forced her hands to not hold on too tight.

When Jonah also threw his arms around them for a group hug, a part of her was almost grateful because if she had held Sam, just Sam, Lara was not sure if she had been able to let go.

5.

Sam opened her eyes. Just a bit, just this tiny fraction, because everything hurt. There was… sunlight, above them. She felt light as if she was floating, and she was wearing some dress, and her feet were naked, and there was this crown on her head and--

Sam looked up. 

Lara looked down at her. ‘Ah,’ Sam thought, slowly blinking against the sunlight. ‘She came.’

Sam closed her eyes again.

X. Afterwards

Sam woke up tired. She had never felt like this before, not even after the wildest party nights, not even when she had broken her arm at one point in the past, as a child, an incident she did not even remember that well anymore. Not when she had been hooked up on painkillers from a dental procedure. No, she was pretty sure the way she was feeling now was new, and maybe that was the reason why, when she opened her eyes, she did not even think about everything that had happened.

She woke up, and for that moment, she thought about closing her eyes again - she must have done this a few times already, but her memories from that were hazy anyway. As if she had drifted for quite some time.

And only now she was able to keep her eyes open, to keep her mind awake for just a moment longer than the few milliseconds had taken her before to fall asleep again.

She was in a bed, a hard mattress though, nothing like her bed at home with the soft covers and the mattress that she just was able to sink into as soon as she let herself drop onto it.

This was… very different. 

And Sam was far from home.

Sam stared at the ceiling for just a moment, not even able to understand what was going on. How long had she been asleep? Where was she now?

The questions trickled into her mind one by one, like water running through her fingers, and she could not even concentrate properly on them, as if she was too tired to even bother.

She was lying on her back, a position she did not usually sleep in, but when she thought about just trying to get into the sideway position, with her legs tucked close to her chest, she knew that it would be too much work. Too much effort was required to even start moving.

With her mind still fuzzy, she tried to turn her head, just one bit, and she managed oh so slowly, to look to the side, and found herself looking at…

An arm. Head. Brown hair.

Lara.

Sleeping with her head buried on her crossed arms, right next to the bed, on a chair.

Sam looked at her, and then looked away, back to the ceiling. She wanted to reach out at pet Lara’s hair, or ask her what she was doing, sleeping like this.

But there was something that Sam did not remember. Something--

Sam fell asleep again.

*

When Sam woke up again the next time - or at least the next time that she was more awake, not just in that nebulous fog that clogged up her mind and her thoughts - it was different from before: Sam woke up clear-headed. With all the memories.

With all the memories, of the ship sinking.

Of Yamatai.

Of Lara.

Oh, Sam thought to herself. Of course.

She must have made a sound because someone was in the room with her. The person said something.  
Had Lara been here in the room before? Sam shook her head to clear her head. When she looked over, it was Jonah in the room with her. He must have been sitting on a folding chair next to the door. Waiting for her to wake up, most likely.

He said something to her, something that she could not make out yet. He turned to the door.

“Stay,” Sam tried to say. She did not mind so much the idea that she would be alone, but rather she felt like she needed someone here. She needed someone to tell her where she was. Were they on a ship? Now that she was more aware of her surroundings, she could feel the movement of the room, but she needed to be sure that was not just her, but the ship.

Jonah at least seemed to understand part of that. When he spoke, he moved his lips slow enough and repeated himself twice, to make sure that Sam had a chance to understand him.

“We are on a ship, a passing tanker,” he explained and then added, “I am just going to get Lara.”

To that, Sam could only nod.

*

Maybe seeing Lara again should have felt different. Sam did not know what she had expected if she even had had the time to have any expectations. As it was, Jonah had come back with the doctor of the ship, and with Reyes, and with Lara, and then the room had been busy and Sam simply had not had the time to think, and then the doctor had left, and Reyes and Jonah had left, and it was just Sam.

And Lara.

And Sam did not know what to think.

It did not feel like they could go back to how it was before. Sam’s heart did a little jump every time she looked at Lara, and Sam would have to think about what that meant for her.

What it meant for their friendship.

And what she was going to do about this.

Lara told her about the things she had missed, filled in the gaps where Reyes and Jonah had not been able to provide all the information, and Sam tried to ask questions, but her throat was so dry she had to cough after every word.

She slowly, oh so slowly, reached out to grab the water.

“Let me help you,” Lara said and carefully propped Sam’s head up to allow her to take a sip from the bottle.

Sam grimaced at being handled like this. Sure, a lot had happened, but she did not need to be handled like this. She lifted her hand and took the mug in her hand, and Lara pulled back, only to reach out again once Sam had had enough water. A part of Sam missed the feeling of Lara’s fingers on her.

Her throat was better now but still parched.

“Thank you for coming for me,” Sam managed to say, word by word. She wanted to drink more water, but she had the feeling that it would take time.

Lara smiled at her. “Of course,” she said, “you are my best friend after all.”

When Lara left, the words burned in Sam’s mind, and she turned them over and over in her head to find out why they seemed to bother her so much.

*

Lara did not come by often, even as Sam felt better and better, and it hurt, strangely, because even if Lara had noticed anything, had she not also said that Sam was her best friend?

It was only when Sam asked that she found her answer.

“Lara needs to get better as well,” Jonah said with a strange, sad expression on his face. “A lot of bad things have happened to her.”

Oh, Sam thought. And felt her heart swell.

*

Once Sam could walk again for more than three steps, she made her way over to Lara’s cabin. She needed to walk slowly, and she was out of breath way too fast to her tastes, but she made it, and when Lara let her in, only then did Sam allow herself a small rest. She sat down on Lara’s bed - the only place to sit, really - and motioned for Lara to sit beside her.

Lara went, almost warily.

As if she was afraid of Sam. How ridiculous.

As soon as she had sat down, Sam reached for her hands, and said, “You are my best friend as well,” with her heart beating in her throat, “And I love you.”

“Me too,” Lara replied, still so careful.

She smiled, and oh, that was what had been missing, Sam realized. When had been the last time she had seen Lara smile?

Sam smiled back.

‘And I am in love with you,’ she thought to herself, not daring to speak. Not yet. ‘I am in love with you, I am in love with you, I am in love with you.’

Lara was still smiling.

‘I am in love with you,’ Sam thought, and soon, she would say it out loud as well.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Yuletide!


End file.
